Blood On Their Hands: The Racist History of Police Unions

Flint Taylor In These Times
The NYPD police officers union's outrageous assertion that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio had “blood on his hands” in the murder of the two NYPD officers, is consistent with the reactionary role of police unions, which came to prominence in the wake of the civil rights movement. Police unions have played a powerful role in resisting all manner of police reforms, and in defending police officers, no matter how outrageous and racist their actions.

Game Theorists Crack Poker

Philip Ball Nature
An 'essentially unbeatable' algorithm for the popular card game points to strategies for solving real-life problems without having complete information.

Obama to Disband the Marine Corps

SemDem Daily Kos
To all of my conservative friends, past, present, and future: when you hear something so incredible about your president or, in fact, any politician, will you put a minimum amount of effort to verifying it is true before you spout it as fact? Just ONE google search will usually do it.

7 Reproductive Rights Issues to Watch in 2015

Nina Martin ProPublica
In the states, where the 2014 elections gave Republicans control of two-thirds of state legislative chambers, incoming lawmakers also have supersized their abortion agendas. But abortion is just one issue on the minds of activists focused on reproductive rights. There's also birth control, conscience clauses and personhood. Here are seven key trends and themes to watch for this year.

Why We Need to End the War on Drugs

Is the war on drugs doing more harm than good? In a bold talk, drug policy reformist Ethan Nadelmann makes an impassioned plea to end this "backward, heartless, disastrous" policy. He gives two big reasons we should focus on intelligent regulation instead.

Movie: Spare Parts

Four Hispanic high school students form a robotics club. With no experience, 800 bucks, used car parts and a dream, this rag tag team goes up against the country's reigning robotics champion, MIT.

2014: Hottest Year on Record

2014 now ranks as the warmest on record since 1880, according to an analysis by NASA scientists. Nine of the 10 warmest years have occurred since 2000. This continues a long-term trend. The warming trend is largely driven by the increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, caused by human emissions.